Is Australian Shiraz trying to be Pomerol?

[KMP]

Dara Moskowitz of CityPages seems to think so. “Oaky, sweet Australian Shiraz is, in a very distant way, trying to be Pomerol. So is syrupy California Merlot. Coincidentally, to my palate, these are also the two wines on earth that have the most in common with Coca-Cola.” The reference is to Yellowtail, and so you have to wonder how much Aussie Shiraz this individual has actually tasted.

Much of the article is a review of the film Mondovino which the author has seen with several others. They include French wine importer Chris Osgood, who works for wine distributor Cat & Fiddle; and Jeanne Moillard, who lives in Burgundy and promotes the wines of her family company, Moillard.

As Moskowitz notes “Each of these people wanted to talk about something that is more about our lives than it is about the movie: They wanted to talk about how aligned American and Australian palates have gotten to the idea of wine as a sweet, vanilla-toasty beverage, and how difficult it makes their passion of selling more distinct wines.“

In reference to these sweet, vanilla-toasty beverages Osgood says “Every time I have one of these big American or Australian wines with a meal, I feel like I'm eating bites of a Snickers bar between bites of the meal. When I was 21 or 22, I definitely liked wines like that; I always thought, 'This is bigger than the last thing I tasted, therefore it's more memorable.' When you develop your palate you learn that bigger isn't necessarily better.”

The answer is, of course, the wines that Osgood and Moillard can supply. "Château Eugénie - This dark wine doesn't have the obvious fruit or friendliness of a wannabe Pomerol. Instead it has a strongly mineral nose, a scent of plums or prunes, and the funkiness of truffles, all hung upon a bracingly angular and stiff structure that cuts through the world like an axe blade." Or the Californian Smith Wooton Cabernet Franc. "It was bursting with the fragrance of violets and roses, real blackberries and raspberries, and a bit of the brambly scent of dried raspberry leaves and vines. It was very acidic and nicely knit, in the manner of a true food wine."

What is it about these wines that Moskowitz finds so intriguing? Well it seems that they “suggest something about the French palate and its love of structure, something a worldwide taste for Coca-Cola wines is threatening to destroy.”

Hmm, the interesting thing about structure is that it includes acid, alcohol, fruit, and tannins, and all those building blocks need to be in balance. Wines that have mouthwatering acidity are not necessarily well structured or in balance. But if your palate has been educated to believe that they are, then you might just think that a fruit forward Aussie Shiraz does taste like Coca-Cola. Personally I know the difference.

About the only really interesting comment Moskowitz makes is to suggest that we drink broadly and develop our own taste. Amen to that!

Mike

[Guest]

"Is Australian Shiraz trying to be Pomerol?" - Oh dear god, obviously this person has had too much Yellowtail!?

[MatthewW]

When it is a well known phenomemon that many Australian labels make special (see sweeter) versions of their wines for the US market and this person is generalising about Australian wines and palates on the basis of Yellowtail and talking about how aligned Australian and US palates have become......I don't think that I would put much store in ANY conclsions reached.

Matthew

[MartinE]

Does anyone listen to this drivel??...Certainly not anyone I know and/or respect.

If the US/UK/French critics and writers want to crap on with these generalisations so that they can gain some noteriety by differentiating themselves from Parker....Let them.... Hopefully there will be more good Oz wine left for us of whatever style we personally prefer !!

The thing I find the most ironic and therefore amusing is that they just don't get it that the styles we send over there are the styles their market likes and wants, not ours, and that our wineries are making crap wines specifically to sell to their markets because their average punter doesn't know or like anything better!!

As if Yellowtail is representative of Australian wine...God preserve us from the great "Teenage Society"!!

Cheers
MartinE

[TORB]

Does anyone listen to this drivel??...

MartinE

Absoludle Martin, There are heaps of people who read this drivel and belive every word of it..... and they all love Yellow Tail too and think its a sophisticated drink.

[bacchaebabe]

Interesting post. Having just read this after posting a note in the "What have you been drinking" thread and saying the 03 Pedders Creek Shiraz had caramel flavours, thinking about it more in the light of above, I'd actually say it had vanilla coke flavours. It was certainly sweet and that struck me immediately. Saying all that, it was extremely easy to drink and very enjoyable. Not for the long term but for the right now, it was very approachable and drinkable. (Like vanilla coke?)

Horses for courses.

[Grant]

Seriously, how much Pomerol has the writer tried? It is such a poor analogy. Perhaps the latter day garagistes could be accused of having some similarities with Shiraz in terms of ripeness, but there ends the comparison.


Cheers

[KMP]

Yes I thought the statement "how aligned American and Australian palates have gotten to the idea of wine as a sweet, vanilla-toasty beverage" might cause some concern. I'm not entirely sure where it comes from.

Certainly Shiraz in the $15-30USD bracket over here in the USA can have quite a bit of sweet vanilla oak and a consistent style; oddly enough cheaper wines that I have tried tend to have more flaws and less consistency. But its the Coca-Cola analogy that I fail to get. As noted above someone, somewhere in the distant past raised the notion that folks in the USA like some sweetness in their wines because they drink a lot of coke. Well some Coca-Cola consumption data that I found sort of supports that, although other wine drinking countries clearly consume large amounts as well. This data is quite old (1996).

However Moskowitz seems to have taken the notion of a taste for sweetness even further and, to me, appears to be suggesting that Yellowtail Shiraz tastes like Coca-Cola - syrupy vanilla. This is an interesting development and one that I have not heard before. Now I did note in a previous post that the 2005 SIWC gave the 2003 Yellowtail Shiraz a spot in the Fuller Bodied Dry Red Wines list as a Highly Commended Wine. So purely as an academic exercise tonight I intend to pour two glasses one will be Yellowtail Shiraz and the other will be Coca-Cola Classic. I think I might even put the coke out early so it can go flat, and use black glasses so I won't be influenced by the color, and have Miranda pour the drinks so I get them single blind.

Wouldn't it be embarrassing if I couldn't tell the difference!

Mike

[KMP]

I said I would do it!

Yesterday I had Miranda leave out a glass of Classic Coca-Cola so it would warm and go flat. When I got home I opened a bottle of 2004 Yellow Tail Shiraz and poured it and the cola into black tasting glasses so that the color of the liquid in the glass was hidden from view. When Miranda got home I asked her to smell each and tell me what they were. It took her, oh about 3 seconds, to identify the first glass as having alcohol and an equal amount of time to identify the other glass as containing cola. Of course actually tasting from the glasses identifies the contents even more quickly.

Aussie Shiraz might not be Pomerol but it ain't Coca-Cola either!

What does 2004 Yellow Tail Shiraz actually taste like? The things I do for you folks!

Yellow Tail Shiraz 2004
Dense cherry red with red edge. Very open with pronounced sweet vanilla oak. Quite simple but appealing. Medium weight with soft tannins but little holding the wine together. A definite acidic bite upon entry with some sweetness to the finish. Initially unpleasant to drink but your palate does get used to it. 2, 2, 3.5, 8.5 = 16.0/20, 80/100.

Mike

[MartinE]

Initially unpleasant to drink but your palate does get used to it.

Mike

Quick, Mike....Drink something decent before your palate goes into trauma!!

M.

[KMP]

Initially unpleasant to drink but your palate does get used to it.

Mike

Quick, Mike....Drink something decent before your palate goes into trauma!!

M.

Tonight I have to go watch baseball and drink Budweiser so I expect both the mind and the palate to be gone by the end of the evening!

Mike

[MartinE]

Initially unpleasant to drink but your palate does get used to it.

Mike

Quick, Mike....Drink something decent before your palate goes into trauma!!

M.

Tonight I have to go watch baseball and drink Budweiser so I expect both the mind and the palate to be gone by the end of the evening!

Mike

Quite likely...I know Americans find cricket hard to follow or get excited about but I must say I find baseball, even in the US, about as exciting as watching paint peel !!

M.

[TORB]

Martin,

Agreed, and watching American Football is like watching grass grow. They maintain that all that standing around talking, and having a cuddle, is all about strategy; thats like saying only great wine can only come from terroir.

[seanh]

The funny thing is that the talk is always as if the french and italians dont drink coke, they do and lots of it. You are more likely to see a bottle of coke on the table of a restaurant in Italy than in Australia,

cheers

[Muscat Mike]

The funny thing is that the talk is always as if the french and italians dont drink coke, they do and lots of it. You are more likely to see a bottle of coke on the table of a restaurant in Italy than in Australia,

cheers

Fair enough Seanh,
but is an Italian drinking it
MM